Cameraderie Is Not Looking For You

I’ve been thinking a lot about the need for strong friendships and supportive communities to sustain good mental health. Men in particular are in dire need today for a camaraderie that goes deeper than sports scores and fishing gear. (We men excel at looking at and talking about external stuff together but do not excel in sharing our hearts aloud.)

From the eminently quotable Peter Kreeft: “If you love, you will suffer. The only way to protect yourself against suffering is to protect yourself against love – and that is the greatest suffering of all, loneliness.”

On October 1 at 7PM, by the way, Dr. Kreeft will be my guest on The Patrick Coffin Show, in the first live iteration of the podcast, at St. John’s church in Costa Mesa (click here to register if you live in Orange County). We’re going to be talking about the need to really listen to and understand our separated brethren as we engage in the culture war against the “isms” new and old, not just fundamentalism, but indifferentism, atheism, and relativism.

Some people are uncomfortable with the concept of a culture war. I say, get over it. The primal culture war, if you will, is the spiritual battle that rages around us between angels and demons for our souls, otherwise known as Catholic teaching (See CCC 391 and following).

In any war, the army itself provides intense camaraderie. Shakespeare’s “band of brothers” speech from the magnificent Henry V bespeaks the power of this level of fellow-feeling and bravery.

But where is this to be found today? We barely acknowledge we’re in a war at all, despite the fact that our freshman-age kids come home by Thanksgiving as atheists, our teens are depressed at alarmingly high rates, and so many of our marriages are secretly hurting. Robert Putnam has describes this sense of isolation and disconnection from the goods of the community in his book, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community

The parish setting and the ethnic neighborhood that framed it used to be a powerful matrix of social support. Sniff at the notion of “Catholic ghetto” all you want, but as a network of interdependent supports buttressed by a shared sacramental life, it worked exceedingly well. Almost gone today are the sodalities, the parish sewing bees (which also served as prayer networks), the altar and Rosary societies—all of which formed a kind of loose extended family beyond the four walls of the domestic church.

Fifty years after the Second Vatican Council, in an era of low information Catholicism with greatly eclipsed Mass attendance, if you want authentic Catholic camaraderie you have to search for it. It’s rare, so sometimes you have to pray to St. Anthony to find it.

But the finding that comes from the seeking is worth it. Whether it’s Bible study, men’s fellowship groups, the Cursillo movement, a regular monastic retreat, Opus Dei, or your homegrown group of regulars who love Jesus Christ – anyone who takes discipleship serious must intentionally seek these extra sources of support.

The days of “Sunday Mass only” Catholicism are behind us. We have to wake up to the reality. And sometimes we need help a little help from our friends to leave the womb-like security of bed and to tackle the perils of the day.

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By admin_coffin| 2018-02-08T19:56:11+00:00 February 8th, 2018|Categories: Spirituality|Comments Off on Cameraderie Is Not Looking For You

"Patrick Coffin’s contribution to the Church’s engagement with the media is as excellent as it is urgently needed. He is both passionate about communicating the Faith and fluent in the vernacular of our culture."

"Patrick Coffin is like no one I’ve ever met. He’s an extraordinary radio host, a common sense intellectual, a filmmaker, and an a everyday comedian. Patrick is a rare gem and a gift to the Church."

– Patrick LencioniCEO The Table Group Best-selling author of The Advantage and Death By Meeting

"The new evangelization means, first of all, knowing your audience and finding a way to connect with them. This makes Patrick Coffin a new evangelist in spades. He presents the Catholic Faith in a way that mixes ancient wisdom with modern wit."

"Patrick Coffin is a robustly engaging, funny and delightful radio host and speaker. He knows all things Catholic and it is always a joy and honor for me to appear on the air with him. Highly recommended."

+ Bishop James ConleyDiocese of Lincoln, NB

"Patrick Coffin is one of the best interviewers and most knowledgeable persons I know when speaking about the Catholic faith or almost anything. Not only is he good at what he does—and he does so much—but he is good at who he is, a true disciple of Jesus and loyal son of the Church."

"We have no one like Patrick Coffin in Britain: I wish we had. His calm, reassuring tone of voice, and pertinent, intelligent questions, are such a pleasant contrast to the impatient, aggressive interviews on the secular media."

– Piers Paul ReadMember, Royal Society of Literature Award-winning author of Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors. Official biographer of Sir Alec Guinness

"There are few real stand-outs in the media. Patrick is one of them. He knows that he’s not competing with other Christian broadcasters but with the very best in the secular sphere out there. He’s professional, funny, and sharp."

"Patrick Coffin is part of a growing and increasingly successful effort to engage with religious matters in a manner that is evidently relevant to the modern world, unmoored from its foundations as it has become."

– Dr Jordan PetersonProfessor of Psychology University of Toronto

"Patrick Coffin is a communicator. His love of his faith, his sense of truth and his agile mind enable him to take the Catholic faith into the marketplace of ideas in a most engaging way."